Week 7 – There’s a Story at the Bottom of This Bottle, and I’m the Pen

I am a fan of pop punk music; I can’t lie. It is my fun, angsty pleasure. And there is one line that I’ve always loved in the song, “Dear Maria, Count Me In,” by the band All Time Low. The line is, “There’s a story at the bottom of this bottle, and I’m the pen.” For those paying attention, you’ll notice that is also the name of this post. So wow, I’ll be basing this adventure on that quote! Good power of deduction!

Now, I’m not one to condone drinking excessively, or requiring it to have a good time. I’ve seen how destructive it can be to people’s lives. That said…getting drunk can be fun as hell!

So when I heard that line a few weeks ago, I happened to also be trying to think of new adventures to have, and boom! What if I drank a bottle of wine as I started writing a story? Just sort of see what happens? Yeah! Do it!

This adventure will be good for me for two reasons. The first is that I’m not a fan of wine. I have tried countless glasses with friends over the years, and I have never found a wine that I would enjoy drinking, like, at all. So, by making myself taste an entire bottle, I hopefully will be one small step closer to acquiring a taste for wine. And if not, maybe the more drunk I get, the less I will care about how disgusting it tastes.

The second thing is that oftentimes I can come up with great story ideas, great plots, but I never actually sit down and put the pen to paper and write. But a good friend of mine from college taught me a way to get through writing difficult analytical papers…you take a shot of liquor, then drink beer as you write the paper. Make sure you do this a day or two before the paper is due so that you have time to edit out possible drunk ramblings, and the many misspellings or dangling modifiers. So maybe drinking while trying to at least start a story, or create a new one, would be beneficial? We shall see.

Now, I am writing this Saturday night (February 18th, 2012). But I will most likely edit it tomorrow afternoon, throw in the random pictures I may take, and then post it tomorrow night.

So, without further ado, here we go.

A sultry smoke fills the air, cascading down the walls as it surrounds the booth. It’s patrons wave it aside, annoyed by the smell of cheap cigarettes from the teenagers sitting behind them. The smoke can be tolerated, can be ignored. What can’t be ignored is who these kids are. All of them never worked a day in their life; just road the wave of daddy’s pocketbook.

Berton Campbell, age 18. Son of the largest owner of Lexus dealerships in the metro area.

Thomas Kennedy, age 17. His father ran the books for Campbell’s dealerships, making adjustments here or there across all aspects of their files.

And last, Patrick Burns, age 19. His dad was the one who actually ran the whole business. He’s the one who connected the underbelly of society to Campbells dealership. And of course, his son assumed that meant he ran the two kids sitting across from him.

Burns was telling another story, laughing about some girl he met, fucked, and then walked away from at a party last night. Kennedy and Campbell laughed at all the right parts, asked the right questions about how much she moaned during the sex or despaired when he left her. They were good soldiers; they already had learned how to keep their boss happy. They already learned that they had to protect him not only from toughs but also from a belief that he is like mortal men. Kennedy and Campbell were the ones that the gentlemen sitting at table 42 had to worry about. Young as they were, if they knew their role, they wouldn’t go down without some form of bloodshed.

But for as good of soldiers as they were, it was all over in a flash, just as it should be. They are followed outside. Number 1 asks for a light. When casually reaching in his pockets, Burns is thrown to the ground by Number 4. Number 3 punches Kennedy in the throat as Number 2 hits Campbell on the kidney, then temple. He goes down quickly as Kennedy tries to scream out but can’t. Number 1 walks up to him and gives him the envelope as the rest of them carry Burns away.

The only surprise is that Kennedy still reaches for his gun. Even though he is gasping, can’t breathe, wheezing nothing into his lungs, he still reaches for his gun and tries to shoot at these people that are taking away the only thing that protects his existence. Number 1 has to knife Kennedy’s trigger finger off, quickly and with precision, before walking along with the rest.

In the van, the Numbers don’t speak. There’s no need to; it has been accomplished with success. There may have been blood shed, which is to be avoided. But that isn’t the worst outcome. Zero will be happy; he has his ransom without harm. He can stop this syndicate and worry about the next. He can move onto Phase Nine of the Tenth Plan. Number 1 didn’t know much about Zero, but he knew that Phase Ten was the ultimate goal, what Zero had been waiting years to achieve.

And that is where I stopped writing. I may have drank it too quickly. I think I finished the bottle in about an hour and a half, and I started drinking around 3:30am. So I was tired and very quickly drunk. But I’m fairly pleased with the short few paragraphs I created. And I’m curious where it will lead. I think I will have to continue this tradition to continue this story.

And side note, but does the wine cork remover look like Johnny 5 to anyone else?